How to Delete All Photos from iMessage Threads on iPhone & iPad

Nov 23, 2020 - 6 Comments

How to Delete All Photos from Messages Threads on iPhone & iPad

Data, photos, and videos within the Messages app could take a chunk of your iPhone or iPad storage space, especially if you send and receive a lot of media over iMessage. One solution to this is to delete all photos from Messages threads when your device is running low on storage.

The media that are shared over iMessage are not saved in your iOS or ipadOS photo library as a separate album, so you can’t find them directly in the Photos app, but you can use a trick to view all photos in a Messages thread. Scrolling through your iMessage conversations and individually deleting the photos that you’ve sent and received is also a pretty tedious process that can take a long of time. However, you can choose to view all photos in an iMessage thread, and then quickly delete them in a matter of minutes from there. And that’s exactly what we’re going to show you how to do, so read on to learn how to delete all photos from iMessage threads on both the iPhone & iPad.

How to Delete All Photos from iMessage Threads on iPhone & iPad

In order to do this, you’ll need to first view all the media that you’ve sent and received in a particular conversation. This is a fairly straightforward procedure. So, simply follow the steps below.

  1. Open the default “Messages” app on your iPhone or iPad.

    How to enable iMessage on iPhone and iPad

  2. Open the iMessage conversation from where you’re trying to browse and delete media.

    How to Delete All Photos from Messages Threads on iPhone & iPad
  3. Next, tap on the contact’s name as shown in the screenshot below.

    How to Delete All Photos from Messages Threads on iPhone & iPad
  4. Now, tap on “Info” to access more options.

    How to Delete All Photos from Messages Threads on iPhone & iPad
  5. Here, scroll down and tap on “See All Photos”. This option is located right below the thumbnails.

    How to Delete All Photos from Messages Threads on iPhone & iPad
  6. Now, tap on “Select” at the top-right corner of the menu to start selecting the pictures you want to delete.

    How to Delete All Photos from Messages Threads on iPhone & iPad
  7. Simply tap on all the photos that you want to remove from your device. No, you can’t use the swipe gesture for quick selection like you’d normally do within the Photos app. Once you’re done with the selection, tap on “Delete” located at the bottom-right corner.

    How to Delete All Photos from Messages Threads on iPhone & iPad
  8. You’ll be prompted to confirm your action for permanently deleting your photos. Tap on “Delete Attachments”.

    How to Delete All Photos from Messages Threads on iPhone & iPad

There you go. Now you know how to delete all photos from iMessage threads easily.

Repeat the same steps for other iMessage conversations too, if you want to free up even more space.

It’s worth noting that screenshots are separated from regular pictures and videos when you view all the media. These screenshots can take up a lot of space too if you have tons of them, so make sure you switch to the Screenshots section and follow the same steps to remove them from your iPhone or iPad.

You can also delete all the media in an iMessage thread by simply deleting the thread itself. Although this is an easier method, you’ll permanently lose all data from that Messages thread, including your other messages, text messages, audio messages, videos, and anything else, unless you’re able to somehow recover the deleted thread from a previous iCloud or iTunes backup.

If you use iMessage on a Mac, you’ll be able to access all your attachments in Messages app by using the macOS finder and delete them within seconds to free up storage space.

Were you able to delete all the media shared via iMessage using the method we discussed here? Did you find another solution? Remember you can always delete the entire Messages thread as well, but that deletes all conversations too. Let us know your experiences and thoughts in the comments.

.

Related articles:

Posted by: Hamlin Rozario in iPad, iPhone, Tips & Tricks

6 Comments

» Comments RSS Feed

  1. kingston says:

    Hi, Doesn’t work at all. “See All Photos” is not and option in “info” on iphone 13 IOS 15.4.1.

  2. Mark says:

    Not what I was looking for. Obviously I wanted an option for “delete all” and to not have to individually select 1000 photos.

  3. David says:

    Same here.

  4. Bunny Jordan says:

    I am not able to delete attachments via this method. It lets me choose with check mark what I want but when I hit delete and delete attachments nothing happens.

Leave a Reply

 

Shop on Amazon.com and help support OSXDaily!

Subscribe to OSXDaily

Subscribe to RSS Subscribe to Twitter Feed Follow on Facebook Subscribe to eMail Updates

Tips & Tricks

News

iPhone / iPad

Mac

Troubleshooting

Shop on Amazon to help support this site